Filmed during a Professional Training Workshop in New York, Franz Schubert‘s late piano sonatas come to life in this performance guide that includes video clips, written commentary, and an animated score, allowing the user to simultaneously watch Mr. Fleisher teach from the keyboard and study the notated music. Select any combination of 24 separate video clips from six categories to build your own tailor-made video master class from a range of topics.
In December 2007 American pianist Leon Fleisher reached a high point in a remarkable career when he was awarded a Kennedy Center Honor in Washington, D.C.
A child prodigy, Fleisher began studying the piano at age four, gave his first public recital at eight, and at nine was taken under the wing of the legendary Austrian pianist and teacher Artur Schnabel. Fleisher made his debut at Carnegie Hall with the New York Philharmonic under Pierre Monteux in 1944, and he ensured his place among the top pianists of the day when he won Belgium’s Queen Elisabeth International Piano Competition in 1952. Thereafter, he was much in demand by orchestras, concert promoters, and record companies. Especially notable was his series of concerts and recordings featuring the concertos of Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms with George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra.
In early 1965 Fleisher began suffering from a malfunction of his right hand: the ring and little fingers curled uncontrollably to his palm. The problem was diagnosed in 1991 as focal dystonia, a condition related to repetitive-stress syndrome, which not infrequently affects musicians. Undaunted, Fleisher focused his energies on teaching and conducting. Eventually Fleisher began performing left-hand pieces for piano. (A number of such works—including compositions by Maurice Ravel, Sergey Prokofiev, Benjamin Britten, and Paul Hindemith—were written for Paul Wittgenstein, a gifted pianist who lost his right arm in World War I.) In addition, Fleisher commissioned or inspired new works from William Bolcom, Lukas Foss, Gunter Schuller, and several other notable composers. During his years of affliction, Fleisher sought relief in numerous treatments, including brain surgery; in the mid-1990s he discovered that occasional injections of Botox (botulinum toxin used as a muscle relaxant) combined with Rolfing (a type of massage therapy) ameliorated the condition. Fleisher returned to two-hand performance in 1995; his right hand steadily improved, although he did not abandon the left-hand repertoire. In 2004 he played a triumphant return recital at Carnegie Hall, and he made his first solo two-hand recording since the 1960s. A short documentary film by Nathaniel Kahn about Fleisher’s persistence, Two Hands, was nominated for a 2007 Academy Award.
Leon at the BSO, Shoot Day 3
(Leon Fleisher playing “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring”)
/patrick
Piano News Flash
2019-06-20
The Piano Key Missing
"In Monroe, Louisiana, in the university. I did the rehearsal, went to freshen up at the hotel, came back, and when I went out on stage the piano was closed. I tried to open it but it was locked. And no one had the key." Read more at irishtimes.com
2019-06-20
Hear Yuja Wang in Gershwin in Vienna Tonight
Hear a program that highlight the connections between Austria and the New World. Gustavo Dudamel conducts The Vienna Philharmonic. The admission to this open-air concert is free - a gift of the Vienna Philharmonic to all Music Lovers! Join us in the stunning setting of the gardens of Schönbrunn Palace, on Thursday, June 20, 2019 at 8:45pm. No tickets are required for attending the concert. Read more at sommernachtskonzert.at
2019-06-19
Great Composers Demand Change
"With piano concertos, we know beforehand what we are going to get," she said. "But with solo works, it's so bloody difficult. The great composers always change. And as you change, they change. Especially with the Schubert sonatas, I discovered that I truly have changed." Read more at
2019-06-18
The Cell Phone Octopus
The creator thought about an automated solution composed of a small robot that will play the toy keyboard for us. The melodies chosen are not any audio files but, for practical purposes, the ringtones developed by Nokia and defined as RTTTL "played" by the manufacturer's cell phones. Read more at hackaday.com
2019-06-17
Brad Mehldau Shares His "Finding Gabriel"
"I'd like to share the piano part for the title track of my new record, Finding Gabriel, for pianists, other musicians, and anyone else curious," says Mehldau. "I wrote it as a piano solo piece, recorded that first, and then built everything else on top of it." Read more at www.bradmehldau.com
2019-06-17
The Tchaikovsky Competition Opened
The 16th International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow and St. Petersburg, held June 17-29, brings together a total of 228 musicians from 36 world nations. Follow the contestants in the live-stream at medici.tv. Read more at medici.tv
2019-06-16
Instrumental Music and Intelligence
The Savanna-IQ Interaction Hypothesis, based on the Savannah Principle, proposes that intelligent people are more likely to be attracted to novel stimuli than other individuals are. Read more at bigthink.com
2019-06-15
Are You E, S Or B?
A large study of over 4,000 participants in the UK led by Cambridge University psychologist and researcher David Greenberg found a distinct correlation between brain types or thinking styles and musical preferences. Read more at ludwig-van.com
